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Chorus
Dr. Susan Messer, Director |
Honor Chorus Rehearsals: Thursdays from 3:45PM to 4:45PM
Ridgeview Singers Rehearsals: Thursdays from 4:45PM to 5:15PM
Washington DC Trip Contract
For the Syllabus, click here.
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RIDGEVIEW CHORUS:
The Ridgeview Chorus meets every day to encourage excellence in performance, music reading, and singing skills. Repertoire that the chorus studies, sings, and performs is a variety of styles—from pop to Broadway to classical. The classes are divided into 8th Grade Girls’ Chorus, 8th Grade Guys’ Chorus, 7th Grade Girls’ Chorus, 7th Grade Guys’ Chorus, and 6th Grade Chorus. The Chorus presents three major concerts a year—Fall, Winter Holiday, and Spring. Also, the Chorus participates with the cluster elementary schools and the high school in one concert a year. At the district-sponsored Large Group Performance Evaluation, The Ridgeview Chorus consistently scores Superior and Excellent ratings. Every three years, during a student’s middle school career, the chorus will travel to perform at a major venue. In 2007, the Ridgeview Chorus performed in Carnegie Hall in New York City, and in 2004, the chorus traveled to Bermuda to perform. The music department is planning a trip to perform in Washington, DC, during March 2010.
Spring Musical Theater Show
Ridgeview Charter School presents an annual spring musical theater show. Their performances are unequaled for the middle school level. Any Ridgeview student may be involved in the show—as crew members (backstage, lighting, tickets, sound, costume, set, etc.) or cast members. Auditions and applications for the show are available in December. The show performances are in March or April. Dates for the next show are Thursday, April 29, 2010 at 4:00 PM and Friday, April 30, and Saturday, May 1, 2010, at 7:00 PM. Previous shows that Ridgeview has presented are: Thoroughly Modern Millie, High School Musical, Oklahoma, Cinderella, The King and I, Bye-Bye Birdie, Peter Pan, The Sound of Music, You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, Meet Me in St. Louis, Annie, and Into the Woods.
Students singing the Star Spangled Banner at one of our football games
SUSAN MESSER
BRIEF BIO.
Susan Messer has been involved professionally in music education and church music for over twenty-five years as a public school teacher, a seminary professor, and a church music minister. For the past ten years, Dr. Messer has lived in Atlanta where she teaches middle school chorus and general music at Ridgeview Charter School in the Fulton County public school district. At Ridgeview, her choruses have consistently scored superior grades at the district Large Group Performance Evaluations. In addition to fall, winter, and spring concerts, each spring she directs and produces a musical theater production which features 75-100 middle school students. In March 2007, her chorus was the featured choir at the National Middle School Festival in Carnegie Hall, sponsored by the Field Study Center of New York. She was named the 2002-2003 Fulton County Teacher of the Year in a school system of 5500 teachers.
Dr. Messer has served churches in North Carolina, Louisiana, and Georgia, with her longest tenure as minister of music at First Baptist Church, LaPlace, Louisiana, for ten years. Presently, she is the minister of music at Parkway Baptist Church, Duluth, Georgia, from October 2005 to the present. She was assistant professor of church music education at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary from 1988-1994. After leaving New Orleans, Dr. Messer moved to Houston where she was the Apprentice Choir director for the Houston Children’s Chorus. Also, in Houston, she taught at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary satellite campus.
Dr. Messer has taught at Ridgecrest and Glorieta Church Music weeks, the Southern Baptist national assembly centers, and has conducted workshops and served as a choral clinician in numerous states. For ten years, she was a writer for the children’s choir curriculum for Lifeway Christian Resources, the largest Christian publishing house in the world. She received the Editor’s Choice award from the Preschool/Children’s Music Department of Lifeway Christian Resources in 1998.
She earned her degrees at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina (B.M. in music education and applied piano), the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (M.C.M. in music education and piano performance), and Louisiana State University (Ph.D. in music education). Her husband Jeff works for the Coca-Cola Company as a director in the Supply Chain/Demand Planning division. Their daughter Beth is a 2007 graduate of Florida State University, and, presently, is working on her master’s degree at Clemson University.
